NU Online News Service, Aug. 6, 3:25 p.m. EDT

Property-casualty insurance companies grew more popular with New York agents during the first half of the year, according to survey results released by the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of New York.

The Summer 2009 IIABNY Industry Index showed that approval ratings for companies doing business in New York rose by close to 4 points for commercial insurance, and close to 2 points for personal insurance over the Winter 2008 results.

More than 210 member and non-member agency individuals across New York participated in the telephone survey conducted by the independent consulting firm Vincent McCabe, Inc. for the DeWitt, N.Y.-based IIABNY.

Super regional companies (those that write insurance in multiple states but do not operate nation-wide) saw the biggest gains, increasing 6.3 points in commercial insurance and 4.3 points in personal.

Smaller regional companies also improved by 1.1 points in commercial insurance and 2.3 points in personal.

Large national companies gained 1.5 points in commercial insurance but declined slightly in personal lines.

The highest scoring companies in each category were for commercial insurance:

o National: Chubb

o Super Regional: Peerless

o Regional: Dryden Mutual

For personal lines, the highest scorers were:

o National: Kemper

o Super Regional: Peerless

o Regional: Midstate Mutual

"For the first time since the inception of the IIABNY Industry Index, we saw improvements in nearly every category," said Kathy Weinheimer, IIABNY's senior vice-president of industry relations and education.

"Insurance companies have worked hard to improve the agent experience, and these results show that those efforts are paying off," she said.

In particular, agents gave companies high marks for the responsiveness and quality of relationships with company field personnel. They also generally approved of the fairness of compensation agreements, with scores rising in this regard for both commercial and personal lines insurers.

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